1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to vehicles and, in particular, to identifying the location of parts in a vehicle. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for mapping parts in a vehicle using radio frequency identifiers.
2. Background
Vehicles require maintenance after some period of time during which the vehicle is used. For example, aircraft may be taken out of service for scheduled maintenance to replace parts that wear out or to perform inspections to see if other maintenance needs to be performed on the aircraft. During maintenance of an aircraft, a part or assembly of parts may be overhauled, repaired, inspected, and/or modified. Examples of maintenance that may be performed on an aircraft include, for example, without limitation, replacing tires, replacing seals, replacing actuators, changing the configuration of the seats, and other suitable operations.
In performing maintenance, a part may be removed from the aircraft. The part may then be inspected, reworked, or replaced. The part is then reinstalled in the aircraft. If multiple parts of the same type are removed, these parts may be returned to the aircraft in different locations from where they were removed. In some cases, parts are fungible. In other words, these parts are not specifically designed or selected for a particular location. As a result, if multiple parts of the same type are removed from the aircraft, maintenance personnel may not know where the parts came from.
If reworking or replacement of a part occurs, it may be desirable to identify the original location of the part. The original location of the part may be used to determine whether the particular assembly in which the part was used may require further maintenance.
Further, this identification of the original location of the part may currently be performed by a maintenance person marking each part and the location from which each part was removed from the aircraft. This type of process, however, is time consuming and may increase the time and expense for performing maintenance on an aircraft.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method and apparatus that takes into account at least some of the issues discussed above, as well as possibly other issues.